International Educators Can Open Doors to Opportunity

I remember when I was a little girl, my father showed me the rupee key on his old manual typewriter. Years earlier he had brought the typewriter back from his year in New Delhi and what was then called Bombay. He was in the first group of American Fulbright scholars to study in India in 1951.

To a young economist interested in economic development, being in India so soon after independence was fascinating. He believed economic stability was a pillar of equality. He knew what underdevelopment looked like having grown up in the small community of Newellton, Louisiana, during the Depression.

During his Fulbright year he studied distinctive features of the Indian financial system. He carried with him an appreciation for both the subtle and the significant differences among national approaches to economic policy, a mindset that I think served him well throughout his career, including as the first African-American member of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System.

Gatekeepers Can Open (or Close) Doors

My father used to talk about the “gatekeepers,” the people who might bar one’s way or open the door to unexpected opportunities. The professor who suggested he apply for the Fulbright program helped open a door.

Thirty years later, in the fall of 1981, I arrived in Geneva for my education abroad semester on a Pomona College program at L’Institut universitaire des hautes études internationales (IUHEI). IUHEI was a graduate school, so Pomona undergraduates had to qualify for the program. I am thankful